Seminars

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Abstract:

The power of science for exploring the world depends on the research tools available and both the imagination and the rigor of the scientists using them. I will present three stories from my career that illustrate 1) the potential of using old tools in new ways, 2) the danger of a vivid imagination without sufficient scientific rigor, and 3) the importance of rigor over peer pressure. As a young marine scientist at UC Santa Cruz, I used SCUBA far offshore to study fragile aggregations of plankton and detritus--the so-call "marine snow" (1). SCUBA provided the manual dexterity and discrimination needed to selectively and carefully take samples, which differed from the traditional bottle-cast or net-towing methods at the time. At the time, this SCUBA sampling pushed the limits of what we knew about micro-environments in the pelagic environment, which expanded our understanding of fragile details on a milliliter scale--a scale relevant to larval fish and many zooplankton. We will discuss the implications and what I learned at NASA about never sending a person to do a job a robot can do better, faster, and cheaper. As a graduate student at Scripps, I considered the sinking of marine snow and studied the potential impact of temperature and pressure on marine bacteria in the Yayanos lab. At the time, a guest scientist, John Baross, was simulating the high temperature and high pressure conditions in hydrothermal vents and claimed to grow bacteria at 250°C and 265-bars pressure--far exceeding the known upper temperature limit of life at the time. Intrigued by his extraordinary result, I rigorously replicated his experiments and showed that all of the results could be explained by artifacts (2). While studying the upper temperature limit of life, I focused on the heat shock proteins (HSPs), that are found in all organisms and known to contribute to acquired thermotolerance. My research into the HSPs in an organism living in near boiling sulfuric acid led to a breakthrough in our understanding of the function of these highly conserved proteins in vivo (3, 4).

1. Silver, M.W., A.L. Shanks, and J.D. Trent. 1978. Marine snow: Microplankton habitat and source of small-scale patchiness in pelagic populations. Science 201: 371-373.

2. Trent, J.D., R.A. Chastain and A.A. Yayanos. 1984. Possible artefactual basis for apparent bacterial growth at 250°C. Nature 307:737-740.

3. Trent, J.D., et al. 1991. A chaperone from a thermophilic archaebacterium is related to the eukaryotic protein, t-complex polypeptide 1. Nature, 354(6353): 490-493.

4. 2003. Trent, Jonathan D., et al. 2003. Intracelluar localization of a group II chaperonin indicates a membrane-related function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 100: 15589-15594.

Bio:

After studying marine science at UC Santa Cruz, Jonathan, receive a PhD in Biological Oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany, Århus and Copenhagen Universities in Denmark and the University of Paris at Orsay in France. His research continued at the Boyer Center for Molecular Medicine at Yale Medical School and Argonne National Laboratory before joining NASA Ames Research Center. He left NASA in 2019 on a Fulbright at Akureyri University in Iceland and recently founded UpCycle Systems focused on building sustainable data centers. He is a Fellow at the California Academy of Sciences.

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Abstract:

Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have led to a global climate crisis, and reduction of fossil fuel emissions is no longer enough to prevent warming and other negative ecosystem impacts. To mitigate the damage, it now imperative to explore mechanisms to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The ocean has a large capacity to store carbon, exceeding that of the atmosphere by 50 times and that of soils and plants by 15-20 times. Consequently, there are many techniques that are being investigated to explore marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR). Of these, ocean iron fertilization (OIF), is the most studied – due to extensive field testing of John Martin’s 1990 Iron Hypothesis. However, the use of OIF as a tool for mCDR is controversial, and there are many remaining uncertainties about its efficacy and its potential to impact ocean ecosystems. Due to these (and other) concerns, research evaluating OIF for mCDR was halted ~15 years ago. Today, the urgency of the climate crisis is causing this approach to be revisited. Here, I share a brief history of OIF research, and introduce the current and ongoing efforts of ExOIS (Exploring Ocean Iron Solutions): an organization comprised of oceanographers, international lawyers, and social scientists aimed at developing a strategy to evaluate OIF for mCDR. Plans for the next generation of field studies will be introduced, highlighting what’s new and what remains to be addressed scientifically, before OIF could be considered a viable climate solution or as a tool in the global C market.

 

Bio:

Sarah is the Biological Oceanography faculty member at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. She studies the ecology, evolution, and physiology of marine phytoplankton. Phytoplankton are a diverse group of organisms and their photosynthesis fuels marine food webs, shaping biogeochemical cycles of carbon and other important elements (including nitrogen, iron, silica). Sarah’s research is largely focused on diatoms, an important and evolutionarily unique group of eukaryotic phytoplankton that often dominate coastal oceans and other nutrient-rich ocean environments. Diatoms are one of the most well-developed groups of model organisms for molecular studies, with several genomes and genetic tools currently available and Sarah’s research uses a wide variety of traditional and multi-omics tools to better understand the biology of diatoms and other phytoplankton in culture and field-based studies.

 

 

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The California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP) is a community-based science program that uses volunteer anglers and standardized hook-and-line fishing surveys to monitor responses of fish to marine protected areas (MPAs) across the state. With 15 years of data from Central California and 5 years of data statewide, we evaluate changes in catch per unit effort (CPUE), size structure, and biomass inside and outside MPAs over time and the effects of fishing pressure and MPA design attributes, such as age and size, on the strength of MPA responses. We found compelling evidence statewide that MPAs are working, when compared to reference sites. MPAs have elevated CPUE, larger fish body size, and higher biomass for the vast majority of fished species. Moreover, the magnitude of the MPA response is explained by the amount of fishing pressure occurring outside the MPA; stronger differences in fish biomass between MPA and reference sites occur in heavily fished areas. We also observed stronger MPA responses in larger and older reserves. Tag-recapture data provided evidence of spillover of some individuals across MPA boundaries, with presumed benefits to fisheries; however, our data indicated many fish species have small home ranges and stay within the boundaries of the MPAs. Finally, examination of CPUE and biomass trends with increasing distance from MPA boundaries indicates that fishing-the-line behavior and edge effects modify MPA responses in California.

 

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Abstract:

The modern fish farmer must weigh many, often conflicting, factors when making operational decisions on a farm site. They're balancing sales needs, resource limitations, and complex animal husbandry issues with a constantly changing set of ocean conditions on each farm. Technology is transforming this challenge through an ever-expanding IoT dataset (e.g., high resolution hydrographic sensors) and new tools like automated lice counting. In this talk we’ll look at how a group of oceanographers built software tools to translate the raw ocean observations into data-driven actions and behaviors to improve fish health and welfare on the farm sites. We’ll look at the ways ocean data analysis add confidence to feeding, treatment, and mitigation decisions as well as the process of founding the business.

Bio:

Jonathan LaRiviere is Chief Executive of Scoot Science, an ocean analytics and forecasting business based in Santa Cruz, California, which aims to help fish farmers protect assets, operate sustainably, and increase profits by enabling a more complete assessment of local ocean conditions. Scoot’s platform integrates in-pen sensors with external data sources to provide real-time information and forecasting for conditions in the marine environment. Jonathan co-founded Scoot in 2017 and was previously a lecturer at Santa Clara University. His research on reconstructing past ocean temperatures, CO2 levels and climate conditions to understand how the oceans and earth systems respond to climate change has been published in Nature, Nature Geoscience, Science, and Geophysical Research Letters. He holds a PhD in Ocean Sciences from UCSC.

 

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Abstract:

In the past two decades compound-specific isotope analysis of amino acids (CSI-AA) has exploded, moving from a novel analysis performed by a few labs to an increasingly mainstream technique, employed across a steadily increasing range of disciplines from ecology, archaeology, paleoceanography, geomicrobiology, and biogeochemical cycle research. Amino acid stable carbon (13CAA) and nitrogen (15NAA) measurements remain the best developed applications, with D/H ratios of AA  and molecular position-specific isotopes representing the next frontier. Most work to date has focused on establishing trophic connectivity and baseline isotope values in modern and palaeoecological applications. This talk will present an overview CSI-AA techniques and potential applications, focused primarily on coupling 15NAA and 13CAA potential to establish trophic connectivity, primary production and nutrient sources at the base of food webs, and applications coupling CSI-AA with isoscape to understand animal migration or shifts in feeding zones.  Finally, it will focus on new potential and emerging applications, such as exploring symbioses in extant organisms as well as microfossils.

Bio:

Mathew McCarthy is a marine organic geochemist and  Professor of Oceanography at University of California Santa Cruz.   A chemist by training, he studied bio- and organic chemistry at UC San Diego Rodger Revelle college, followed by two years working as a chemist on  Methyl Mercury contamination in the Mediterranean at the International Atomic Agency - Marine Environmental Studies Laboratory in Monaco.  Returning to the US, he received his PhD from University of Washington in Oceanography and Organic Geochemistry in 1998, working with John Hedges on new approaches to understand structures and bioavailability of marine dissolved organic matter.  After his PhD he received a Chateaubriand Fellowship to study in Paris, was then a Carnegie postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Geophysical lab in Washington DC,  and finally received a University of Hawaii young investigator award to work on interactions between microbial loop processes and DOM production, before coming to UC Santa Cruz as an assistant professor in 2001.

The McCarthy Lab focuses on developing and applying organic and stable isotope methods to address a wide range of biogeochemical, paleo-oceanographic and ocean ecology questions.   A main focus has been developing compound-specific amino acid isotope techniques and approaches

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Abstract:

 

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Abstract:

Kelp forests host tremendous biodiversity and provide essential ecosystem services but increasingly face direct and indirect threats from rapid global change. Environmental stressors like ocean warming and marine heatwaves impose direct physiological stress on foundational kelp species as well as indirect threats via impacts on primary consumption by grazers. However, it may be impossible to generalize the impacts combined ocean warming, acidification, and other drivers have on critical ecological interactions like herbivory due to complex energetic impacts on both consumers and their resource(s). Therefore, it is advantageous to focus on understanding specific consumer responses to multiple drivers and dynamic conditions in ecologically key taxa, such as the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. As with all consumers, the abundance and quality of available food constrains the energy budgets of sea urchins, mediating their responses to stressors. Here I will discuss how changes in the abundance and composition of macroalgae, S. purpuratus’s primary food, as well as contemporary abiotic stressors affect physiology, performance, and subsequent ecological impacts. I will reference case studies in British Columbia, Canada utilizing field and laboratory-based experiments. These empirical studies provide basic insights to inform applied restoration of degraded kelp forests, improved energetic modeling based on first principles, and expectations for consumer-resource interactions in the context of rapid global change.

Bio:

I study basic and applied marine science emphasizing physiological ecology, fisheries, and global change. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, I investigate the influences of marine protected areas (MPAs), benthic habitat, and species traits on spatiotemporal trends of fishery performance. As a National Science Foundation Ocean Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow (NSF OCE 2308398), I study independent and combined impacts of temperature, acidification, and deoxygenation on the physiology, performance, and population dynamics of sea urchins whose grazing shapes nearshore ecosystems. To this end, I apply field experiments in the natural laboratory provided by geographic gradients of upwelling intensity in coastal California paired with manipulative experiments in a controlled laboratory setting. I aim to formalize and scale up insights from these studies using mechanistic modeling which leverages energetic theory to improve our ability to predict coastal ecological dynamics in a context of rapid global change. Some of my happiest moments involve exploration, whether it is foraging in cloudy coastal redwood forests with my family or breathing underwater in emerald kelp forests bathed in filtered golden sunlight.

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Abstract:

In this presentation, I will overview NASA’s EXport Processes in the Ocean from Remote Sensing 2021 Field Campaign in the North Atlantic (EXPORTS NA) focusing on the physical processes modulating water transformations and carbon export during the study. A major programmatic goal was to conduct the sampling in a Lagrangian mode so that ocean ecological and biogeochemical changes can be observed independent from physical advective processes. To accomplish this goal, EXPORTS NA conducted a multi-ship, multi-asset field sampling program within a retentive, anticyclonic mode water eddy. Lagrangian sampling assets remained within the eddy core throughout the experiment, demonstrating that the mode water eddy was retentive. Outside the retentive eddy core, the rich mesoscale flow field advected biogeochemical tracers around the periphery of the eddy. Additionally, strong westerly winds from four storm events deepened the mixed layer (ML) above the eddy’s mode water and exchanged surface waters outside of the eddy via Ekman transport. Within this environment, two major carbon export events were observed: 1) Gravitational sinking of organic matter out of the ML in the retentive eddy core, and 2) organic matter advected vertically along isopycnals along the eddy edge.  Combined these illustrate two examples of export pathways in dynamical regions such as the North Atlantic.

 

Bio:

I am a Physical Oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab, University of Washington. My research focuses on processes at the atmosphere-ocean interface that influence the distribution of heat, salt, momentum, and biogeochemical tracers in the upper ocean. Studying the physics of the near surface ocean is essential for understanding how the upper ocean communicates with the atmosphere as well as with the interior circulation. This is a multi-scale problem, requiring detailed studies to explore mechanisms at play, along with an understanding of how these processes integrate to impact the weather and climate system. My research combines observations, numerical models, geophysical fluid dynamics theory, and applied mathematics across scales to address these topics. I received an MS from San Francisco State University and a PhD from the University of Washington. After a postdoctoral appointment at Brown University, I returned to UW as a Senior Oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab and an Affiliate Assistant Professor within the School of Oceanography.

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Abstract:

Dissolved oxygen plays a major role in determining the composition and vertical distribution of mesopelagic prey that are of global ecological importance due to their large biomass. Recent work that documented prey capture events at >800 m suggested that the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) provides important foraging habitat for northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) where they can target sluggish mesopelagic prey. In this talk, I will start by detailing some of my PhD work in which I assessed northern elephant seals’ population-level use of OMZs across their two annual foraging trips by combining tracking and diving data from 364 adult female seals with modeled monthly dissolved oxygen data from Copernicus Marine Service. Overall, I found that, at the population level, seals primarily used the OLZ, but I will dive deeper into the diel, regional, and seasonal differences that exist, and which strategy led to greater foraging success. Finally, I will highlight a current project with collaborators that is using newly developed dissolved oxygen loggers (Little Leonardo Ltd.) to obtain in situ oxygen data at the same resolution of the seals’ foraging behavior. These data will better elucidate the indirect effects of dissolved oxygen on their foraging behavior. Through this work, we have determined elephant seals can serve as a sentinel species for monitoring ecosystem-level impacts of OMZ expansion associated with climate change.

Bio:

I am a postdoctoral research fellow working jointly with Dr. Dan Costa (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Dr. Akinori Takahashi (National Institute of Polar Research). I like to call myself a movement ecophysiologist who uses biologgers to study freely diving marine megafauna in their natural context. I am broadly interested in how diving marine megafauna are adapted to and make a living in the marine environment and how they might be affected by anthropogenic disturbances and environmental change. My current research focuses on the diving behavior and foraging ecology of northern elephant seals relative to low-oxygen zones, work that started during my PhD and is continuing for my postdoc. I’ve dabbled in refurbishing and customizing physiological biologgers for some of my dissertation work, and now I’m helping test newly developed dissolved oxygen loggers. I find it exciting to be part of projects that are advancing biologging technology to better answer our research questions. I’ve been fortunate to travel and work with a handful of pinniped species, including crabeater seals in Antarctica, Caspian seals in Kazakhstan, and California sea lions, alongside inspiring collaborators.

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Abstract:

Forestcover combines climate science with musical composition. Through earth system modeling, we test how expanding forest cover based on biophysical and sociopolitical realities will impact climate as well as ecosystems and the services they provide, at the global and regional scale. We then translate the modeling outputs into sound, thereby transforming ecological climatology data into music. This collaboration seeks to connect the sciences with the arts, specifically environmental science with music, in order to expand the possibilities of cultural engagement with environmental change and sustainability.

Bio:

Christopher Luna-Mega is a composer from Mexico City. Interested in focused listening, performance strategies, audio technology, and interdisciplinary collaboration, his work analyzes sounds and data from natural and urban environments and translates them into notated music for performers and electronics in various forms of media. His music has been featured in festivals such as Other Minds "The Nature of Music" (Berkeley, CA), Diferencial (Mexico City), the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Seoul International Computer Music Festival (Gwanju), AngelicA (Bologna), Tectonics (Reykjavik), Tectonics (Glasgow), L’Off (Montreal), Avant X (Toronto), among others. His research on acoustic ecology and environmental sound-based composition has been presented and published in the proceedings of the Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research conference and the Jefferson Journal. He is an Assistant Professor of composition, electronic music, and theory at the School of Music at SJSU.